Four People Dead in Pennsylvania Shooting Spree

Four people dead and several police officers wounded in a shooting spree near Geeseytown, Pennsylvania.

By Elad Benari, Canada

First Publish: 12/21/2012, 9:53 PM

Handgun

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Four people died on Friday and several police officers were wounded in a shooting spree in rural Pennsylvania, officials said.

The shootings, exactly a week after a massacre of 20 children and six adults at a school in Connecticut, "happened over a large area" near Geeseytown, in a remote part of the eastern U.S. state, Diane Meling, a spokeswoman for the Blair County Emergency Management Agency, told AFP.

"Four people were shot dead. That number of four includes the alleged shooter," she said. "There were several Pennsylvania state troopers injured, I understand none seriously."

The emergency was over, officials said.

"Pennsylvania State Police have neutralized the active shooter in Franstown Township, Blair County. There is no longer a threat to residents and visitors to this area from this individual," an update on the county emergency management's Facebook page said, according to AFP.

The bloodshed came a week after 20-year-old Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle in the attack at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Lanza's massacre has revived calls for stricter controls on arms in civilian hands. President Barack Obama has thrown his weight behind a bill to reintroduce a ban on civilians owning assault weapons, proposed by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.